New Orleans Faces "The Nation"

It's holiday time and we probably all want to be thinking about something other than bloodshed and disaster. But the editors at The Nation feel otherwise. In the January 5 issue, they've run a long investigative piece on perhaps a dozen unsolved shootings of African-American men in the largely-white New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers Point in the days after the event shorthanded as Katrina. It's a lengthy, painstaking piece of work.

And, just like the work of much of the mainstream media about the disaster in New Orleans three-plus years ago, it lies.

Not about the shootings. Nor about the white vigilantes who brag about their activity in shooting, or at least shooting at, black men in the days following 8/29/05. But reporter A.C. Thompson, who says he (she?) spent eighteen months in this investigation, repeatedly mischaracterizes what happened in New Orleans to set the chaos and hatred he portrays into motion. It's neither denying nor justifying what the piece reports to point out that, absent a catastrophic man-made flood, this nightmarish flood of racist reaction might never have been unleashed.

The mendacity starts in paragraph 2:

It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans...

Some "crash". Reporting from New Orleans on August 29, most observers agreed that Hurricane Katrina had "spared" New Orleans, that the city had once again "dodged a bullet". While coastal Mississippi lay flat, relatively minor wind damage -- we recall the Hyatt Hotel's windows blown out--was the worst sign that Katrina had dealt the city a glancing blow. Later, the National Hurricane Center, in its final report for the year, was to revise downward its estimate of Katrina's strength as it passed by New Orleans to either a strong Category 1 or weak Category 2 storm.

Maybe Thompson made a clumsy mistake in paragraph 2. Five paragraphs later, it gets worse.

When the hurricane descended on Louisiana, Algiers Point got off relatively easy. While wide swaths of New Orleans were deluged, the levees ringing Algiers Point withstood the Mississippi's surging currents...

A reader might take from that passage the idea that a "surging" Mississippi was responsible for the flooding of New Orleans. In fact, zero river flooding occurred anywhere in the metro area. Algiers Point is protected (not "ringed") by exactly the same river levees that protected downtown, the Quarter, the Garden District, and every other New Orleans neighborhood abutting the Mississippi, which is why New Orleanians refer to the slim parts of the city that escaped flooding as the "sliver by the river".

Thompson's at it again later in the story:

Around Algiers Point people say they rarely saw cops during the week after Katrina tore through Louisiana...

What is it Thompson, and the piece's editors at The Nation, refuse to say? Simply that, according to at least two respected forensic engineering reports (here and here), ultimately confirmed by a semi-confession from the involved agency, the flooding of New Orleans was caused by a series of design and construction flaws, stretching back over decades, in the supposed Hurricane Protection System overseen, in all details, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people drowned and otherwise perished in the flooding, white, black, rich, poor. Did The Nation ever do an eighteen-month investigation to find out why such a system, mandated by the Congress to protect New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Betsy, went so terribly, catastrophically wrong?

Or, like the mainstream media, did it content itself with a crime story that used the Katrina disaster merely as a fulcrum?

I write a post this long, and this harsh, because New Orleans has enough problems, self-inflicted and otherwise, without a respected national magazine asserting that the city had or has a race war. There are racists aplenty in New Orleans, white and black. Yet, after two decades of knowing the city pretty damn well, I'd venture to say that day-to-day living in New Orleans involves more casual, easy, frequent interactions between people of all backgrounds and colors than I see, say, in LA, NY, or DC. Flood 80% of any of those cities, flood the airwaves (local and national) with fearful rumors -- after those same airwaves have been gleefully saturated with grotesque images of rappers glorifying thuggery -- and see what latent emotions come to the surface.

But analyzing the systemic problems of the Corps of Engineers -- upon whom New Orleans is now forced to place its hope for future safety, barring a sudden change in federal policy -- apparently doesn't jibe with The Nation's agenda. Is this the best a wounded city can expect from liberal media?

Comments

[Scherzo]

Quoting Harry Shearer:

"Algiers Point is protected (not "ringed") by exactly the same river levees that protected downtown, the Quarter, the Garden District, and every other New Orleans neighborhood abutting the Mississippi, which is why New Orleanians refer to the slim parts of the city that escaped flooding as the "sliver by the river."

I don't get it. Isn't Algiers on the other side of the river? Isn't Algiers a different city? Maps.google.com shows Algiers Point as being in Algiers. Algiers point is not a part of the "sliver by the river." What don't I understand?

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

What you don't understand is that Algiers is part of the city of New Orleans.

[AwShucks]

Algiers is a part of the city of New Orleans.

[skippypicasso]

If you don't have any problems with the subject of the article, and you think it's an important subject, why would you want to take a chance that the main topic of racist vigilantes will be subsumed by a "Harry Shearer doesn't like The Nation's reporting on Katrina" meme?

Sure, it would be great to have the context of the events explained accurately--since you've admitted that you're attacking the context, maybe we should allow the families of the victims to ask The Nation to correct that context if they think it's germane to the story.

[db08]

I don't get it Harry ( will you attack me as you have attacked other commentators to your blog?). How does shedding the light on a uninvestigated crime against black people somehow a slap against what you perceive as your city of brotherly love? Does it make you uncomfortable that not every receives the treatment you do? Why must black people take the back seat to your discomfort with the portrayal to my city of birth? Are you suggesting that it was Katrina that made these white racist behave in this manner? as criminals? Or was Katrina and the lack of available law enforcement an excuse for racist criminals? Does caring about what happens to our fellow citizens somehow a sin committed by those you target as liberals? Is being liberal somehow inerently evil, stupid, uncaring?

I don't get it Harry. Isthis the best your wounded city can expect from you? Perhaps you can only handle one truth at a time but the city deserves better.

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

Okay, since you don't get it, let me explain it (and not attack, as I've not attacked others) one more time:
If you're establishing the conditions that existed when the shootings occurred, and you're an investigative journalist, it should be important to you to correctly establish those conditions. If you're careless with publicly available facts, why should we trust you with reporting that relies only on your say-so?

[yappnmutt]

the focus of the report was not how the city was flooded. reporters have always been guilty of getting ancillary facts wrong. the rest of the story was diligently sourced.
your assertion that nola is somehow an island of equality based upon civil day to day interaction of the residents that you claim is not seen in other cities is just an unsupported opinion.

[AAKAlan]

You are being obsessive.

The category of the storm has nothing to do with heinous crimes including murder.

Calling someone a liar because they got the meteorological conditions incorrect while reporting what was, essentially, a racially-motivated massacre in which all the criminals got a free-pass because no one cared is harsh indeed, and does nothing but distract from a much more important subject.

Have you been watching too much Monk?

[YouFailed]

Using this "strong cat 1 or weak cat 2" argument is not only immaterial to the story, but a simplistic characterization to the dynamics of Mother Nature and her effect on coastal topography.

Yes, the Mississippi levies didn't flood anything...the coastal levies (canals, lakes, etc) failed. But since Algiers Point didn't flood, the only relevance was the validity of the "state of anarchy" that existed. That's not disputable either way and not germane to the story.

What is remarkable to me is how The Nation article correctly ponders our rule of law has flown out the window post-Katrina. Crimes committed during a period of anarchy are not investigated, and people flaunt and celebrate their actions openly. This will not discourage people from exercising their latent or active stereotypes and racism on others next time we have an extraordinary event. The threat of the application of law will mitigate senseless violence, and that is the point that needs to be acted on by the Feds, State and City.

By twisting the focus of the story to "where's the investigation of the Army Corp of Engineers" is completely irrelevant. You don't get it. Sadly, many don't. If you switched the black people with the white, there would be more outrage and less comments on the storm dynamics.

[michiganfan]

Very well stated.

[EuroHuffPoFan]

YouFailed . . .

Good to read your posts.
Thank you.

[YouFailed]

Second, after living here for so long, I would like to point out that a disproportional percentage of the people that stayed represent the lunatic fringe of the demographics of full-time residents. That said, I find the gist of the article pertinent to be social commentary on the dynamics of latent racism that exists in both the predominantly white (and black) enclaves of our checkerboard we call New Orleans.

While I agree the original article may not represent the whole story, by labeling it as mendacity (more than once) and using meteorological and engineering links to strike down inconsequential (to the story) comments in order to, by proxy, invalidate the investigative reporting that is core to what happened in Algiers Point is (I'm trying to be kind) the same faulty logic that is desperately used by some radio talk show hosts and political pundits to attack by proxy ideological targets.

Several houses were leveled by the wind in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, wind was the least of our problems in New Orleans. The storm surge inundated levies. The storm was downgraded when it clipped New Orleans, but what mattered in terms of destructive force was the sheer size of the storm. The total energy of the storm was much larger than many category 4 or 5 storms in term of storm surge.

(continued)

[YouFailed]

I'm white and I've lived in Algiers Point for the last 14 years. I weathered the storm in an uptown hospital, left after a few miserable days and eventually came back two weeks after Katrina hit, as soon as the answering machine came back on.

I know people in the neighborhood and I've heard the local stories, watched the news as well as some documentaries and have some experience with the dynamics of the neighborhood and demographics. I know some of the people quoted in the article.

First of all, I interpreted the article presented by The Nation as commentary on a predominantly white neighborhood in a heightened state of perceived anarchy, lawlessness and fear that, coupled with underlying stereotypes and racism, resulted on white on black crime that remained relatively un-investigated in the aftermath of the storm.

(continued)...

[onenation]

"It's neither denying nor justifying what the piece reports to point out that, absent a catastrophic man-made flood, this nightmarish flood of racist reaction might never have been unleashed."
"Or, like the mainstream media, did it content itself with a crime story that used the Katrina disaster merely as a fulcrum? "
So, is it that Katrina was mearly a tipping point (read excuse) for raceist killings. Or because of Katrina, the killings are only part of other bigger stories that must be covered before a few blacks killed can make the cou for importance.
Wow, what how close to "well, they were only blacks" can you get. Back to the 1940's and 1950's. An excuse for target practice was what it seemed back then.

[Harry Shearer - Huffpost Blogger]

Okay, try this: when, without any precipitating disaster, television reported that police failed to respond to the scene of a dispute in South Central Los Angeles, some people took it as an invitation to engage in violent, race-related behavior. That situation became known as the "riot", or the "insurrection", of Los Angeles in 1992. If you just covered the shootings of a few Korean grocers, and misstated the precipitating cause, and I pointed that out, did that mean I was saying "they were just Korean grocers"?

[Deparis]

I thought you were cleverer than that Sir! Let me follow your "reasoning" with this example: If someone is reporting on the Abu Ghraib scandal in the midst of the Iraq world and in his reporting misrepresents the cause or nature of the whole war, somehow the misrepresentation of the cause and nature of the war discredits his reporting of the Abu Ghraib scandal, which was the focus of his work?

For the last time and to make it clear, Katrina is a whole lot. Pre-Katrina logistical rescure efforts preparedness can be a subject of reporting, the city's infrastructures to prevent a natural disaster can be a subject of discussion, what happened in the city during rescue efforts can be a subject of discussion... Does the cause or nature of Katrina nullify any of these themes of interest? You get the point.

[godhelpusall]

i'm still waiting to hear some mainstream truth about what really happened on 9/11 - the MSM totally failed to report anything other than the "official" story, never asked a question -

i agree that it is extremely disappointing to see the Nation participating in the kind of half-truths and misdirections that have become the norm in American "journalism"

[maxfax]

Can we ever count on anyone in the media to tell the truth about the man-made destruction of New Orleans? Maybe when they tell the truth about the George Bush's war in Iraq and the war on the middle class? Never?

[AsheDambala]

O.k., that was the sixties. We're talking about the worst man made catastrophe in American history which happened in 2005. What point are you trying to make? That you fought for civil rights in New Orleans? That's cool...but that has nothing to do with complete chaos which was transpiring in the immediate days following the Federal Flood. This story was cherry picked, sensationalized, and taken completely out of context by The Nation....to frame it as "Katrina's Hidden Race War" is simply bad journalism. Do you think it's possible to criticize the story on that level....or do you have to jump on the "Race War" bandwagon and ignore the responsibility of the publication to uphold some sense of journalistic ethos?

[IDIOTA]

Well -- many years ago I visited New Orleans, and, no matter where I went I was warmly greeted and even invited to picnics by complete strangers. They liked my "cute" CA accent. So I was surprised when I heard people in the workplace, many who were statisticians, claim, authoritatively, NO is a "dangerous" place. They made the same claim about Oakland. Anyway, my point is that there is a lot of anecdotal terror out there as opposed to the real terror that happened in Algiers. I begin to wonder if I am one natural disaster away from an untimely misadventure.

What is important about Shearer's post is that he points out that the underlying problems which led to such heinous events have not been addressed. Hey -- we had an earthquake n 1989, and our seismic problems have not been solved. We are still trying to build a bridge, 19 years later. I just can't see how the delta will get its levees before the next disaster.

[GoCards1978]

Every time I've visited the Crescent City, I've been "adopted" by my beloved Yats, both black and white. Like any place in this country wracked by the drug trade, N'Awlins has a disturbing murder rate. Its levees need to be built properly and the coastal wetlands need to be restored. Closing MR-GO is a definite improvement since its existence directly led to the Industrial Canal and St. Bernard levee breaches. Still in all, New Orleans is the soul of this Nation, if for no other reason, because of the musical contributions of its residents. BTW, I'm from Detroit and we're no slouches either. We have to stop vilifying regular folks while lionizing pirates in $6000 suits, then maybe we,as a nation, will start caring about what's worth building upon to remake America the country we can all be proud of.

[IDIOTA]

Indeed -- let's stop vilifying average folk and focus on the pirates and getting our country back to the people's business.

[Deparis]

Where was Mr. Shearer until now to address those "underlying problems which led to such heinous events"? Do you even realize the gravity of your statement? That's more or less what Mr. Shearer is saying, but unlike you, he does so more aptly.

[IDIOTA]

Did I say something wrong? Sorry. I try to be as polite as possible. The underlying problem, a grave one as you point out, is that the infrastructure remains shoddy. I did not discuss the race issue because it is toxic; is that the grave issue that you think is most important? All it does is infest.

[LMPE]

This is less than I expect from The Nation. Thanks for the info, and happy birthday, Harry.

[Heru1]

How dare you assert that there are plenty Black rac ists in NO? How many whites did these imaginary Black ra cists shoot? Stop apologizing for white racism.

[azureblue]

you don't knwo what you are talking about. How long did you live in New Orleans?

[akfroggy]

Are you saying that there aren't plenty of black racists in NO or are you saying they didn't kill as many whites?

[Heru1]

Stop apologizing for white racism with your infantile "logic."

[squidhammer]

Racism is rampant here in New Orleans. There's no denying it. Most of it is a result of the crime and corruption here. When Katrina hit, there were people who feared for their lives or property. It's not morally justifiable but it is understandable (when I say it's "understandable" don't misinterpret my point as justifying the murders. I just say their reasoning has some explanation.)

Check out this link to the 2008 murder map of New Orleans:

http://platial.com/map/NOLAFugees-2008-New-Orleans-Murder-Map/14591#post4236211

The vast majority of these victims are blacks. And the vast majority of murderers are blacks. I would say that, based on this, blacks are in more danger now than during Katrina.

Again, this doesn't legitimize the killings. But it is important to try and understand the motivations behind them.

[qdog112]

"the vast majority of murderers are blacks"

Facts are nasty, but the above line should read: the vast majority of those murdered are blacks.

I think the actual numbers will prove your statement false despite the common perception.

[squidhammer]

"Facts are nasty, but the above line should read: the vast majority of those murdered are blacks."

Don't I say that when I say "The vast majority of these victims are blacks?"

What actual numbers are you talking about? Black on black crime is running wild in NOLA.

My only point is that the crime (lots of robberies, theft, rape, murder) caused these white people to have fear. That fear escalated during Katrina because of the lack of law enforcement. The whites feared for their property and let their racism kick into high gear.

[Raven]

Thanks, Harry. Your point is well taken, although I gotta tell you, I don't think I'll ever think of Algiers in the same way again.

I agree with you that it absolutely matters that there was some apparent airbrushing done here in terms of setting up the background of the story.

I'm also going to agree with you that there are racists everywhere - and that New Orleans often transcends that with rare grace.

So I can see how the airbrushing would not only cause you to doubt the credibility of the whole story but would also sting you personally.

Still it sure looks like something bad happened there.

So while I agree with you, Harry, that at least some elements of the real story were distorted here, maybe because it was easier to focus on the shock of racism. And what's presented is pretty shocking.

Shocking enough that it certainly does seem that there's a story here - however airbrushed it might be - that deserves attention.

But Harry, thanks for making sure that it gets due scrutiny as well.

I, for one, remember you as the sane voice of reason when the nonsense about rapes and murders at the Stadium was being peddled as the truth. I know you to have a good nose when there's something fishy going on. And I know you're usually right.